Letters of Suresh Written by Rajiv Joseph Directed by May Adrales Second Stage Theatre October 10, 2021 Production website 💉💉💉💉 out of 5
With this play I did something I have never done in all of my years of theatre-going. I just looked at my watch and found that I could make an evening show if I wanted. I hadn’t planned on this – didn’t do any research. I just went to Playbill on-line and picked one not too far away that I hadn’t seen – – thus Letters of Suresh. Luckily it paid off and the play was the perfect choice for the evening.
Essentially Letters of Suresh is a series of letters that were found in the meager estate of a dead priest in Hiroshima. Over the years he had corresponded to Suresh about life and love. These letters where found and through a third party they are read and passed on to another reader. Essentially the correspondence of one pair of penpals grew into a small group of people that were transformed by the beauty and honesty of the writing. Each person that read the letters was driven to become a writer and the art of letter writing blossomed.
Pass Over Written by Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu Directed by Dana Taymor August Wilson Theatre October 10, 2021 Production website 💉💉💉💉💉 out of 5
This play was perfection. There was not a single word or gesture that was extraneous. Visually the play made sense on the bare stage to a stage full of smoke and affects. Very seldom have been so moved by a play.
In many ways Pass Over uses the play, Waiting for Godot and applies this story and its absurdist rules to an urban black culture. Gogo and Didi have been replaced with Moses and Kitch. The bare stage with a single tree has been replaced with a concrete median with a single imposing streetlight. Even the classic bowler hats of the hobos Gogo and Didi are replaced by baseball caps that become treasured props to them. I could go on and on with the comparisons and revaluations made in seeing Godot through this new lense – it was brilliant.
Sanctuary City Written by Martina Major Directed by Rebecca Frecknall New York Theatre Workshop October 9, 2021 Production website 💉💉💉 out of 5
It was so great to back into the theatre and see a play. It had been waaaaaay tooo long! Sanctuary Play was the first of the group. The story was simple – two adolescents, both children of undocumented workers banded together to plot ways to stay in the country. The girl simply named “G” found a loophole in the system that allowed her to stay if she was willing to stay with her physically abuse succession of her Mother’s boyfriends and take on an excessive amount of college student debt. The boy, “B” had it tougher. His mother was planning to give up and just return to her home country. His options were to continue hiding in the shadows in fear or to find an American girl that he could marry. I am sure you can guess where we go from there.
A Thousand Ways – Part 2: An Encounter Written/Directed by 600 Highwaymen Public Theatre June 14, 2021 Production website 💉💉💉 out of 5
Now the action of Part 1 shifts gears sharply. Now this next $15 dollar ticket gets you to the actual THEATRE and gets you sitting directly across from an actual person. Still an audience is lacking but at least we are getting a live event! That’s big! There were about a dozen or so waiting in the lobby and one by one the usher would lead into one of the many theatre spaces of the Public Theatre where we would find ourself on-stage (not in the audience) and facing a simple, well lit table, 2 chairs, one social distancing screen, a stack of typed cards, a pencil, a blank card, and a tape dispenser. Rather spooky to be sitting there all alone. Eventually another person from the lobby that you do know know at all is led into your space and sits in the opposite chair.
A Thousand Ways – Part 1: A Phone Call Written/Directed by 600 Highwaymen Public Theatre June 13, 2021 Production website 💉💉 out of 5
Let me begin by saying that this really isn’t theatre in that it lacks one essential ingredient – an audience. This makes Thousand Ways an experience and not technically theatre. But at this point in theatre’s resurgence, I’ll take ANYTHING! The premise is interesting: everything happens with a phone call to a total stranger that remains a stranger throughout. Once your $15 dollar ticket is purchased, you are given a day, a time and a code to dial. When that time comes and you enter the code an pre-recorded electronic voice patches you through to another random person. From there the most mechanical voice asks you to share things with your partner ranging from serious to silly and to do all kinds of imagined fantasies as to what this person must look like and what their habits might be.
